More than 60 young professionals from the local real estate industry gathered earlier this month to attend a free walking tour hosted by the Urban Land Institute Western New York's Young Leaders Group (YLG). The tour was focused on Rocco Termini's Hotel Lafayette redevelopment project, Ellicott Commons, the Washington Market, and Oak School Lofts. The walking tour was organized to satisfy a growing demand of interest to see new developments in the downtown Buffalo corridor.

"The Urban Land Institute was very pleased to offer this tour of Signature Development's downtown projects,"

A doctor who received his medical degree from the University at Buffalo during World War II and spent his career investing with the intent of giving back to his alma mater has made an historic gift to the university.  The gift of $40 million is the largest-ever donation from an individual to UB.

The donor, who is deceased, is remembered as someone who from an early age knew that he wanted to be a physician.

"The day I received the letter of acceptance to the UB medical school was the happiest day of my life," he told friends. "Becoming a doctor was my lifelong dream."

Canisius College and the Sabres organization are discussing the possibility of constructing a one or two rink hockey facility at the corner of Main and E. Delevan Avenue.  The complex would be used by the college and as a practice facility for the Sabres.  It would replace an elevated parking lot at the prominent corner.

Nick Veronica of Canisius' The Griffin has

Construction on the Global Vascular Institute and Clinical & Transitional Research Center, a joint venture between the University at Buffalo and Kaleida Health, is winding down.  The $291 million project at the corner of Ellicott and North streets in the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus broke ground in August 2009.  Buffalo General's relocated Emergency Department is expected to open in November and the remainder of the building will be finished by February. 

Pressure is mounting on the ECC Board of Trustees to shift gears on its proposal to build a $30 million Health Sciences Center for Excellence at the college's North Campus.

Rev. Darius Pridgen and Greg Conley, co-chair of Young Citizens for ECC, along with several others, were on hand at the college's Board of Trustees meeting to advocate shifting the proposal to the City Campus, where it could tap into opportunities at the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus.

"My fear is that history may

Zaepfel Development has received initial approvals from the Town of Amherst to build student housing across from the Erie Community College's North Campus. This news comes on the heels of ECC's decision to construct a $30 million Health and Science building in Amherst rather than near the downtown campus which is steps away from the quickly expanding Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus.

Zaepfel plans to construct the $18 million three-story complex at 205 Youngs Road, south of Lyndhurst

Buffalo State College's new dorm complex is nearly complete.  The building is on the east side of Grant Street north of Rockwell Road.  It is one of many projects the college has underway or planned.

The $44 million building contains 507 beds.  1,200 sq.ft. student apartments contain four private bedrooms in suites with two bathrooms, a living room and kitchen. 

ECC officials, hell-bent on constructing a $30 million new building on the north campus, are now pitching a plan that would expand the college's footprint downtown.  According to today's Buffalo News, ECC is exploring relocating its culinary programs to the Statler while also taking space in the AM&As Department store for additional classrooms.  In addition, the college is looking to offering automotive repair classes in the city. 

Downtown leaders and student representatives

The Wehle School of Business and the Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society, in collaboration with the Larkin Development Corporation present "Developing the Larkin District: Past, Present and Into the Future" at the Montante Cultural Center tomorrow, June 22.  The free event takes place from 6 to 8:30 PM at the Montante Cultural Center located at 2001 Main Street. 

The public is invited to hear expert speakers on Buffalo's first manufacturing district, the innovative Larkin Company, world-renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright's Larkin Administration Building, and the

The pressure is mounting on ECC officials to reconsider building a new $30 million facility on the North Campus and instead expand downtown.  Senator Mark Grisanti and Assemblyman Sam Hoyt wrote to ECC President Jack Quinn on Thursday urging the college to not only keep "health and science programming on or near the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus" but also suggest that ECC consolidate it campuses.  While not advocating one central campus, the elected officials want to begin

The physical transformation of the Buffalo State campus continues as the university celebrates the groundbreaking of a new $38 million Technology Building beginning at noon.  It is the latest capital project that will result in nearly $350 million in new construction and improvements by 2016, including the recently completed $44 million Student Apartment Complex on Grant Street and a $110 million Science

While the ambitious plans for UB2020 are being scaled back or delayed, at least one component of the plan is moving forward.  The $46 million, 64,000 sq.ft. Educational Opportunity Center is being built on Ellicott Street, just south of Goodell.  It will connect to the UB Downtown Gateway Complex, the former M.Wile Factory building. 

A ceremonial ground breaking was held last September, but actual construction is just now getting underway.  The delay was finance related. 

University at Buffalo President Satish K. Tripathi today submitted a proposal to the NYSUNY 2020 Challenge Grant program in support of a $375 million plan to help revitalize Buffalo's economy by relocating UB's medical school to downtown Buffalo.

Under the proposal, the university will implement the next phase of the UB 2020 plan for academic excellence, spurring rapid development of Buffalo's emerging biomedical economy -- creating new jobs, spinning off new biotechnology companies and expanding educational opportunities for students.

More than 3,000 new full-time jobs will be

New Haven Connecticut, well known as the home of prestigious Ivy League Yale University, hopes to shore up part of its sagging downtown with a college of a very different stripe.  Construction has recently been started on a long planned consolidation and expansion of its community college costing over $200M.

Known as Gateway Community College, it will be occupying land which recently held a vacant department store and dead downtown mall. The campus will initially be composed of 2 buildings facing each other across a major downtown street.  It will anchor the south end of the

The University at Buffalo Henry A. Panasci Jr. Technology Entrepreneurship Competition (Panasci TEC) recently awarded its $10,000 first prize to an information company known as Lectio Labs.

Lectio Labs was a business plan that was concocted by Smruthi Mukund, UB doctoral student, Anurag Bharadwaj, Venu Govindaraju, SUNY Distinguished Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Vedanth Satyanarayana and Achint Oommen Thomas. The goal of the company is to aid its users find out about new information through shared interests in their network of intellectual peers.
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Qiaoquiang Gan is an electrical engineer at UB who demonstrated an event that boosts optical data storage and communications. This became known as the "rainbow trapping effect". Gan is now trying to work on an even bigger breakthrough by capturing all the colors of the rainbow.

Originally, Gan and his colleagues from Lehigh University described how they slowed broadband light waves using a material known as nanoplasmic structures. The goal of the experiment is to achieve multiplexed, multiwavelength communications. This means that optical data can be controlled at different wavelengths

In 2010 UB physicist Dejan Stojkovic and his colleagues began to wonder if the early universe had only one spatial dimension.

Imagine a straight line that expands into a plane and then finally into the world that we know today. The idea that the early universe was very small at first and expanded into its later stages is what Stojkovic and his colleagues came up with.

If their theory is valid then it would address important problems in particle physics. Stojkvic and Loyola Marymount University physicist Jonas Mureika have come up with a test that could prove or disprove their

On Saturday, April 30, representatives from the areas of art, architecture, activism and education will gather at Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center for the "Ineffably Urban" symposium.

The University at Buffalo is hosting this all-day interdisciplinary seminar to bring people together to share how their contributions help define the diverse story of the City of Buffalo, both in times of strength and weakness.  The symposium was organized by UB's own Miriam Paeslack, who is an art historian and adjunct professor in the arts management program.

"It's not a conference about

Medaille didn't break the Guinness World Record although it was a valiant try. They managed to fit 19 students into a VW Bug, which left me wondering just how the record was set at 25 without removing any seats (see background). My only two suggestions would be to try it in a Bug without a stick shift (this one had one... ouch!), and find the absolute smallest and nimblest waifs on campus that don't suffer from claustrophobia.  

More than anything else, it was

Tomorrow is the day that 28+ Medaille students will attempt to break a Guinness World Record. While other students are cramming for exams, these nimble men and women will be cramming themselves into one of the smaller cars on the road. The standing record was set in 2000 by folks in Kremser, Austria (25 people), though there was an unofficial (yet successful) attempt made by Penn State Abington students in 2001 (27 people). Taking no chances, the number of participants has been set at 28, and Guinness has signed off that this 'good old college try' is a legitimate attempt. That's important, especially